Kaimusailing

The frenzied packing of the rental car was done in about 4 hours. I had organized (ha!) what was to be packed, to be trashed, to be carefully stowed previously, so it was just a matter of grunt work. The vehicle was perfect for the job, a Toyota RAV4, midsize SUV with plenty of storage space when you fold down the rear seats.
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Jefferey, the free catamaran guy, bought my reel of double braided line at a bargain price. I was worried it would be stolen when I was gone. I donated a half gallon of windshield washer fluid to Geoffrey, the chemist, left by Eloisa. After all that work I overslept the next morning, I wanted to get out by 6 or 7, it turned out more like 8AM.
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Komputer Ken brought me to the airport to get the rental car the day before and we were to meet up at the Fuji Oriental Buffet on Dunn Ave., 10 minutes from the airport. Unfortunately I was in a line of over 20 people that took 45 minutes just to get to the counter. Things went smoothly after that and Ken had finished eating when I got to the buffet. I had texted him to not wait to eat, I didn’t know how long I would take. He gave me a couple egg rolls from his 3rd plate. The lady who takes the money frowned on me, but it was only a couple of egg rolls, OK?
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I took my fridge items with me and bought a soft sided cooler at Walmart, plus a few items I would need for breakfast the next morning.
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The vehicle had over 50,000 miles on it and the front tires would vibrate like they needed rebalancing, plus there were funny (not) noises coming from the front end, like the transmission was self destructing.
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I stopped at Florence, SC, for fuel and pit stop. It looked like I was getting between 25 and 27 mpg. Traffic was heavy and along the way there were delays due to construction and a myriad semi trucks and RV’s holding us back. I had a few dangerous encounters with crazy drivers who must have learned how to drive in Havana.
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I stopped at Emporia, VA, for fuel and found the price in all the gas stations near I-95 was identical and 25 cents higher than the first two stations I encountered going East to Virginia Beach. The traffic in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area was in late afternoon rush hour, complete with high speeds, reckless dare devil drivers, and more construction. The GPS got confused and was giving me directions for exits that didn’t exist, but after a while I was told I was on the best route.
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When I got to the marina I had to enter my passcode to open the gate and it didn’t open. I tried the old passcode, no dice. I tried the phone call to security option, but there was no answer, and no answer from the marina’s phone number. I really had to pee and here I was, stuck behind a wrought iron gate and fence. Eventually the security guy came around, making his rounds, and let me in. Just in the nick of time.
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I brought essential items to the boat and took a look around. Did I need anything else? I picked up paper towels and dish detergent at the grocers and a small table lamp at the dollar store.
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I was exhausted but full of nervous energy. Netflix was premiering A Man in Full. I binge watched the whole thing. It is well done and worthwhile, but it digresses from Tom Wolfe’s book significantly. I didn’t like the book’s ending and liked the movie’s ending better, but some of the plot lines were short cut or omitted, so the narrative is much shorter, the action carries on very quickly. I got a new feeling for what Wolfe was trying to do. A review in the Guardian suggested that the main character was Trump-like. I don’t think so, but he would definitely be a Trump supporter.
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I slept like a dead man. I had to go to the McCready Pavillion to have blood work done, so I didn’t have any breakfast. I wasn’t sure if I had to fast, but I did anyway. When I came back I made my usual breakfast. I had to continue to unpack the vehicle and stow on board, with rest periods in between exertion. I did two loads of laundry, here at $1.25 a pop.
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The plan was to finish unloading the car, stow on board, take a shower, meet up with the “Bad Crowd” at the American Legion. Rain was intermittent. I kept at it and could feel that my body was getting worn out.
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I showered and ran to the grocers, then to the Legion. It was my first time this year and a quiet evening. Cuddily and Teri were already having a whiskey and a pinot grigio respectively. I ordered a pinot noir and a flounder sandwich with sweet chili sauce. I made it to the table and Cornelia Marie showed up. We toasted each other and caught up on news.
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My sandwich came, an overfried piece of Vietnam fish on a plain hamburger bun. The sweet chili sauce was good. The wise women ordered shrimp salad sandwich which came on the same plain hamburger bun. Next time I will choose differently.
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After returning to SUNSPLASH I made linguine with white clam sauce. I used fresh parsley, Irish butter, and EVOO with garlic, and then clam juice and sauvignon blanc. This would be a very late dinner, but quite good. One of my favorites I have not made in a while.
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The next day I felt like I had been hit by a truck, not a hangover, a body that was sore, achy sore. I must take it easy today. The pizza oven and propane tank were stowed at the old Red Shell Shanty, which is now the Boater’s Lounge. The car was now empty of boat stuff. SUNSPLASH was mess of piled up things. I will deal with them when I am not so sore. Tomorrow is a Dr.’s appointment with a shopping trip to Walmart and Harbor Freight, both nearby the clinic.
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I made another steak salad with romaine leaves, some parsley, green onion, and tomato. The thinly sliced “stir fry steak” grilled in seconds. Put down a row of pieces, immediately go back and start turning them over, then go immediately back and take them off, one by one, onto the salad. Of course I ground black pepper on them while they were grilling.
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The salad dressing is an Italian vinaigrette which I used to make with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and a pack of Good Seasons Italian dressing mix. I now use some garlic powder, onion powder, italian herb mixture, black pepper, and of course the olive oil/balsamic vinegar liquids. The correct ratio is 2 or 3 to one, vinegar to oil.
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I had spent the whole day not doing much at all. I didn’t feel like going out. The next day I saw the doctor and we went over my lab results and talked about the difficulties doctors have with warfare. They gave me a tetanus shot and also one for pneumonia. My prescription meds, two of which I had ran out of, were represcribed and a two week temporary supply of high blood pressure meds was faxed to the local Rite-Aid in Pocomoke.
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I took my time, to let the drug store prepare my meds, and stopped in a nearby liquor store to get wine. They had no Black Box, but had a cheap 5 liter box of merlot, 20% off due to box damage. I took it. I picked up the meds. I drove back to the marina trying a backroads route. It was well that I did because just before I turned off, a construction crew with crane and a line of backed up traffic was sitting on the main road into town. Several other cars turned off also and we drove down a nice 30mph road at about 45mph. A couple cars continued where I exited, at the lane that goes through the swamp to the old Native American Church. At the church another car kind of wandered while I cut to the right of them, onto Main Street Extension.
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I grabbed a dock cart and loaded it up with all the groceries, etc. The no-see-um’s were swarming as bad as I have ever seen them. At the boat I ran below and sprayed with DEET, then continued loading groceries and returning the cart to the head of the dock. Katie who shares a power yacht further up the dock greeted me and it was another glad you’re back. The day seemed less gloomy.
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I took the Schwinn up the dock and hunkered down on board trying to chase the bugs out. I guess I’ll make another batch of white clam sauce and linguine.
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The next day I made another steak salad, marinating the steak in red wine and balsamic vinegar. I watched NBA highlights on YouTube. I had to return the car the next day, so went on a short shopping trip for ingredients for chicken parm. I also grabbed some baby spinach.
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I showered and headed up RT13 to Salisbury, the airport, and the rental car return. My car service showed up and we returned to Crisfield. She said her husband had to help her with her business. The charge for today’s trip was more than double what the going rate was a year ago. I gave her $60.
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My bicycle seat keeps releasing and angling down, making the riding position uncomfortable. I readjusted it again. I was cycling to the Legion to meet up with Cuddily and Teri. I made it in just 12 minutes, very early, and not with a lot of effort. I had a glass of Sierra Mist with ice to hydrate and a glass of pinot noir. We sat at a high top at a window looking east. I bravely ordered the fried flounder again with instructions to not deep fry it until it became a lethal ceramic object.
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The next day was chicken parmesan day. I started by making marinara sauce and a garlic/lemon marinade. The chicken went into the marinade in a zip lok bag. I massaged the bag to get the marinade incorporated into the chicken.
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A very large skillet was started with EVOO and slowly came up to temperature. I put some flour on a plate, an egg beaten with powders and spices, and Italian bread crumbs from an old store bought container. I was able to dip each butterflied chicken thigh in the flour, then the egg mix, then the bread crumbs. Put em in the big pan. I used the main grill section of the Coleman camp grill, it fit well with the giant skillet.
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The cutlets are flipped when they are brown, then a scoop of marinara sauce is laid on them, a slice of mozzarella, and a smaller slice of parmesan. The heat is turned way down and the skillet is covered.
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A large handful of spinach is placed on a plate with and equal amount of fresh romaine. The vinaigrette dressing is dolloped onto the greens and then a cutlet complete with melty cheese is placed on the greens. Yum.
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While I was waiting for various cooking processes to complete, I bided my time trying to get my GPS dongle to work with the newly configured laptop. I had OpenCPN installed, it’s part of the Operating System, and I had all my maps installed. I hadn’t brought my GPS dongle with me, but there was one waiting for me on the boat. I could not get it to work.
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I had sussed these things out many times before and thought I had documented those efforts sufficiently. After searching down my own notes, I realized I needed help. None of my efforts, following my old notes, worked. Additionally I found other recommendations didn’t work either.
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At some point I was ready to quit. I had consumed the chicken concoction and some wine. A very nice dinner.
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The gist of my laptop efforts is that most of the online suggestions resort to opening a terminal screen and typing in commands that will help identify or kick the GPS in the butt. The most basic command is lsusb which lists your usb devices. In our case it is the Ublox chipset. I’ve run into them many times before, they are handled by linux differently and end up as ACM devices, which is I think Asynchronous Communication Module, not as the usual USB or SIO device. There are commands to get the data stream from the GPS device and a command to look at satellites, but they didn’t work. I got the idea to go into OpenCPN and check the connection configuration, it looked correct, I clicked on Open NMEA Screen, and the screen opened in a tab with GPS data scrolling down. It was working. The image is of OpenCPN and SUNSPLASH’s location, located by the GPS dongle.